Two Musketeers and a Dead Guy
by icepixel
Summary: You know, it's funny," she said. "I think right now, on this trip, dragging a dead man around the Arctic, is the first time I've felt like myself in...I can't remember how long." Fraser/Thatcher.


**Spoilers:** Through "Call of the Wild," with particular reference to "We Are the Eggmen" and "All the Queen's Horses."

**Pairing:** Fraser/Thatcher

**Notes:** This fic presumes that the extra few seconds of COTW which aired in Canada are canon. If you don't know what this refers to, you'll find out pretty quickly. ;)

Fans of _Northern Exposure_ will probably recognize the basic premise of this from the third season episode "The Three Amigos." They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

And finally, my research, while thorough, can only go so far. I've never been on a dogsled or in Canada, so take the technical details with a grain of salt.

*** * * 1 * * ***

Nine days of debriefings, reports, and assorted other paperwork after her arrival back in Ottawa, she was finally released from stuffy Canadian Security Intelligence Service offices into the wider world for a full month's leave. Though the April air was cool, the sun on her face was warm and welcomed as she left the building for what she dearly hoped was the last time.

Her stomach growled, and she realized that at nearly three o'clock, it was well past lunch time. She would find a cafe or sandwich shop, she decided, and then sit down and figure out what she was going to do with herself for the next four weeks. Lost in thought, she turned left, remembering that a deli she'd eaten at several days ago was only a few blocks away.

"Inspector!" a voice called from a few feet away.

Meg stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Surely it couldn't be... She turned around and found that it was. He stood in front of her, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket that was open to the chilly breeze. Two years, and he looked no different.

She finally got her mouth to work. "Fraser," she said in wonder.

He wore a grin borne of ill-contained excitement. "It's good to see you, ma'am. It's been a long time."

"That it has. What are you doing here?" She winced. Surely she could've phrased that differently. "I mean, I thought you were still in the north..."

"Oh, I am. I mean, I've been stationed in the Northwest Territories for the past thirteen months. Currently I'm on a leave of absence." At least he seemed as flustered as she was.

"So you came to Ottawa?" That was weird. Personally, the last time she'd been assigned to the capitol, she'd gotten away from it every time she had longer than a weekend off. She couldn't imagine why Fraser would be there.

"I had an acquaintance in the CSIS notify me when you'd returned to the country. I have...something I need to discuss with you."

Her heart fluttered for just a moment. "What is it?"

He looked as if he were steeling himself against confrontation. "Something that will take a while to explain. Perhaps we could talk over lunch?"

Thoroughly intrigued now, she agreed.

Ten minutes later, they were ensconced in a booth in the deli Meg had been thinking of, sandwiches and cups of soup before them. She sipped the chicken noodle from her spoon gratefully. "It's been a while since I've been anywhere where it's not too hot for soup," she commented.

"Ah," he said. "I'd heard you were in the Middle East, but of course no one could tell me exactly where."

She paused, her sandwich halfway to her mouth. "You asked?"

The faintest blush shaded his cheeks. "When I came to Ottawa for reinstatement after Ray and I returned from our expedition, I inquired if you were in the area. That was when I learned of your reassignment to the intelligence service."

"I see." Meg contemplated the table linoleum for a moment. "Did you find it? The Hand of Franklin, I mean. The reaching-out one."

He shrugged. "Not exactly."

"Ah."

Uneasy silence descended over their table, broken only by the sipping of soup. Every interaction between them had always been so strained, Meg reflected, except for those times when they were working together to catch a criminal. She supposed she hadn't exactly started them off on the best foot, firing him on his first day back and all, but she had so desperately wanted to do a good job, a *competent* job, at that posting, and at the time it seemed impossible for his quirks and his almost-but-not-quite-insubordination to do anything but get in her way.

Well, perhaps this was a chance to make things a bit easier between them. She flashed a genuine, interested smile, and asked, "So, what's this all about?"

Fraser pulled several folded pieces of paper from his pocket and smoothed them out on the table. They were covered in typed text. She couldn't read it; not only was it upside down from her perspective, but she wasn't wearing her reading glasses.

"I don't imagine you've heard," he said. "Sergeant Frobisher passed away two weeks ago. Food poisoning."

She nearly dropped her spoon. "Oh, God. I'm--I'm so sorry." She almost started to reach for his hand, and then thought better of it, placing her hand in her lap, where she began to twist her napkin into an ever-smaller wad. "I know you were close to him."

He nodded, his lips a tight line. "More my father and he, but yes, I'd known him all my life." He smoothed out the papers again. "The sergeant had an...unusual request in his will." Meg noticed that Fraser looked almost nervous. "He requested that he be buried at Nameless Point, which is a considerable distance from, well, just about anywhere, really, and certainly from any sort of population center in the Territories. He also specified that I should be the one to bury him there."

Meg furrowed her brow. "That all seems...remarkably like Sergeant Frobisher. But I'm afraid I don't see how it concerns me."

Fraser definitely looked nervous. "He specifically requested that you come with me, ma'am."

She blinked. And then again, trying to process that sentence. "Me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Images of that horrible four hours in a dogsled while they were chasing after Muldoon flashed before her eyes. It had been cold, and windy, and she could feel every bump in the ice, and every bit of snow that came flying up from under the dogs' paws seemed to catch her right in the face. She had tried mightily to excise that memory from her brain, but apparently it had remained.

"*Why*?"

He shrugged. "I'm not quite sure, sir. You must have made an impression on him when you worked together to capture Muldoon, and...on the train."

Ah, yes. The train. That also brought up things she didn't want to think about, but for an entirely different reason. She cleared her throat. "He was quite clear that he wanted me to go with you?"

Ben pushed the papers over to her. "Just there." He pointed at a line of text. She squinted, and could just make out the "I wish him to be accompanied by Inspector Margaret Thatcher, should she be available."

That was that. Meg groaned. "How far is this place from the nearest town?"

The only visible sign of surprise Fraser showed was a slight widening of his eyes. "It's approximately six days from my current posting by sled. Fewer coming back, of course, without the body."

She groaned again. "How do I let myself be dragged into these things?" she murmured.

She hadn't meant for him to hear her, but of course his bat-like auditory sense had picked it up. "I'm sure Sergeant Frobisher would have understood, ma'am, that you've just returned to the country and--"

"No, I'm not trying to avoid it," she interrupted. *Although now I wish Mowbrey had waited just a few more weeks to rat me out,* she couldn't help thinking. "I can't very well refuse a dead man's last request."

"I suppose not, sir." He wore the tiniest of smiles on his face. Only because he was Fraser could she be sure that he wasn't laughing at her.

Resigning herself to the concept of spending half of her leave behind a team of dogs, Meg said, "When do we leave?"

"There's a flight out tomorrow morning at seven."

*Oh, God.* "I'll be there."

*** * * 2 * * ***

The early flight to Edmonton was sparsely populated and quiet except for the thrum of the jet engines. It was a cramped commuter plane; Meg had taken the window seat to allow Ben a little more room in the aisle for his longer legs.

She had forgotten how *solid* his presence was. Even while she was looking out the window and could see him only in her peripheral vision, she could feel him next to her, though he was careful to always keep his leg and arm a proper distance from hers despite the packed conditions.

There had been few such people over the past two years. In the political circles she had moved in while she was in Iraq, people lived or died, often literally, by how quickly they could change their opinions and morals. Sometimes even when they had said and done the right things, they might still suddenly disappear overnight.

She'd had to spin her own lies as well; in that, it wasn't completely different from her work at the consulate. The pressure was, though. The constant tension of hiding her true identity had been the cause of more gray hairs than she was willing to admit. Add to that the knowledge that any wrong word or move on her part might endanger not only her life but those of other operatives in the area, and, well, she'd really wished for someone like Fraser to be with her.

Fraser, who never told a lie, although he did know to the millimeter how finely a hair could be split. Fraser, who could always be depended on to be punctual, and to have all his paperwork completed before the deadline--barring, of course, extenuating circumstances. Usually brought about by association with one of those American detectives. Fraser, whose unwavering dedication to justice truly was a model of policemanship. Fraser, who had kissed her goodbye in the barren wilderness they were now heading to, and whom she had thought she'd never see again.

She'd missed him more than she'd realized. A sudden longing for the Chicago consulate pricked at her mind. She stared out the window at the grid of farm fields passing underneath them.

Somewhere over Manitoba, she heard him say, "Inspector?"

She turned to him, feeling slightly irritated. She hadn't been an Inspector for two years, and she wasn't going to have the term used as a continual reminder of the uncomfortable distance between them. "Fraser, I'm still technically a member of the CSIS, not the RCMP, at least until the middle of next month. And we are going to be spending a lot of time with each other. 'Meg' will do."

He was completely still for a moment. Then he nodded once. "If you'll call me Ben," he replied.

"All right...Ben." That felt weird. That was weird. She had used that shortened form of his given name only once, when she was trying to get Henri Cloutier off her back.

And that was yet another thing she didn't want to dwell on. "What were you going to say?" she asked.

There was that familiar deer-in-headlights expression. "I've forgotten," he said.

"Oh." They looked away from each other. *Damn,* Meg thought. She'd only made things more awkward between them. Two weeks suddenly seemed interminable.

* * *

At Edmonton, they switched to a bush plane headed for Hay River, then one to Fort MacRae, where Fraser was posted. It was another twenty kilometers by snowmobile to his actual home, which Meg was unsurprised to see was a cabin on a mountainside near a stand of hemlock. Their branches were heavy with snow, and the roof of the cabin was covered in a thick layer of it. The only manmade object to be seen against the granite backdrop of the mountains, it was, she thought, unutterably lonely.

They had shared one machine on the way over, Meg sitting behind Ben with her arms wrapped around his middle for balance...just as she had ridden behind him on the horse after they had foiled Randall Bolt's attempt to take over the train carrying the Musical Ride. Would *everything* remind her of things she had tried to drive from her mind? she thought irritably. In Iraq, she'd gone months without thinking of him, almost the whole of the previous year, in fact. Surely she could get through this without constantly recalling the few, admittedly treasured, moments of, well, "contact" between them at every possible instance.

After all, she was a Mountie.

She followed Ben up the steps onto the tiny, sheltered porch. He opened the door--typically, it had been left unlocked--and motioned for her to precede him. She stepped into his home, wondering what she might find.

Like the exterior, the rooms of the cabin were neat and tidy. The front door opened into a large living area, with a small kitchen at the rear. Down a short hallway, she could see doors leading to what she assumed were a bedroom and bathroom. Not an object was out of place, except for one thing: on the kitchen table, and spilling onto the floor, was an amorphous pile of fur, leather, and nylon.

Fraser saw it at the same time she did. "Oh, good, Pete dropped off your supplies." He looked at her. "Pete Quahon is a trapper who lives a few kilometers further out. His wife is about your size. We thought the outerwear would fit, anyway." That was useful, she realized; she'd had to wear three layers for the snowmobile ride over. She'd sold or given away much of her heaviest clothing before heading to the Middle East so that she would have less to store.

Ben crossed the room and began sorting through the pile. Meg trailed behind him. "They also loaned us a sleeping bag and some blankets, and a pair of snowshoes that should fit you."

His words gave Meg pause. "How were you so sure I was going to come with you?" she asked.

His face, when he looked up at her, was completely honest. "I very much hoped you would," he said.

How was she supposed to avoid the thoughts she wasn't supposed to think about when he said something like that, and made her heart seize and her stomach flip over? "I see," was all she could manage.

She turned away, pretending to look at the rest of the cabin while she collected herself. In doing so, she spied the back door, and remembered the reason she was there. "Is he...?" she asked, indicating the vast freezer that lay beyond the door.

"Is who...oh. Yes." Ben nodded. Now that she looked more closely, she could just glimpse the corner of a wooden coffin through the window next to the door. She shivered slightly, and not because of the cold.

Fraser had apparently finished going through the borrowed gear, and he headed for the back door. "I hope Pete put the..." The rest of his words were drowned out by an avalanche of barking that started when he opened the door.

There had to be more than a dozen dogs out in the back. Their arrival--and most likely the impending arrival of dinner--had stirred them into a frenzy. Meg followed Fraser out the door, carefully not looking at the nearby coffin. "Are you running a kennel?" she asked, shouting to be heard over the collected canine excitement.

"Six of them are your team," he called back.

"My *what*?"

Fraser had an expression that screamed "I am being eminently reasonable; please don't yell at me." She'd seen it often. He was wearing it now. "Eight dogs can really only pull a sled and two adults. Add any more dogs and the whole operation becomes unwieldy, particularly in the type of terrain we're going to be covering. With Sergeant Frobisher's remains, of course, we have the equivalent of three adults, and so we need two teams."

"Fraser, you realize I've never done this before, right?" Panic was beginning to color her tone. Going to Frobisher's outpost on the trail of Muldoon had been bad enough, and there she'd only been a passenger while Turnbull, who'd apparently had some experience at that kind of thing--though it hardly showed--drove.

Ben nodded. "I can teach you what you need to know tomorrow. It's really not all that difficult."

Not all that...? Was he insane? She gaped as he went into the wooden shed and began dishing out dog food. He well knew that the last dog she'd had was a dachshund. Harry, chubby though he was, had only ever reached sixteen pounds at his heaviest. Surely he didn't expect her to be able to control six sled dogs after a day of training!

She was still standing there dumbstruck when he returned from feeding the dogs. Seeing her expression, he carefully reached out and touched her arm. "You'll be fine, ma--Meg. I promise," he said.

Those American detectives had been right. Clearly, Fraser was out of his mind.

*** * * 3 * * ***

The next morning, Meg was awakened by the cold and slimy nose of one half-wolf. The nose was followed by a rough, pink tongue on her face, which only stopped when she squirmed beneath the blankets with a groan.

"Ben, I think your wolf is trying to have me for breakfast," she called. Dief was still snuffling at the blankets, trying to get at her through the thick layers of fabric.

Fraser had insisted she take his bed while he slept on the couch, and while she'd put up a token protest, she knew she'd never get him to change his mind over a matter of chivalry. Besides, she'd been exhausted, and after a quick dinner of stew prepared with some kind of northern game animal--she wasn't sure she wanted to know the exact species--a bed had sounded fantastic.

However, sleep had cruelly eluded her for the better part of the night. The problem was that the sheets, the blankets, and the pillow all smelled like him: soap and pine and clean northern air. She'd sternly reminded herself that she didn't care, that it meant nothing to her, but still she laid awake, tossing and turning, frustrated and angry at herself.

And now, what felt like minutes after she'd finally dropped off, here she was fending off a wolf who apparently wanted to lick her to death.

She heard Fraser come into the room then, and she risked uncovering one eye to see him. He was looking at Diefenbaker with that combination of disappointment and frustration she'd seen on his face before. "Dief!" he said sternly, and the wolf finally transferred his attention from her. "Get down right now," Fraser said slowly and carefully, so that the lip-reading wolf wouldn't be able to fall back on his selective deafness to avoid the command. With a whine, the animal jumped from the bed and trotted over to Fraser.

Ben looked at her. "I apologize for him," he said. "He's not usually like this."

"Yes, I know," she replied. In Chicago, Dief had appeared to barely notice her. Why he suddenly seemed so fascinated was a mystery.

"Well, I'm sure he won't do it again. Will you, Dief?" Fraser asked pointedly. Dief gave him the most pitiful look he could muster before ducking his head and huffing once.

"Speaking of breakfast," Fraser continued, "I've prepared some for us. We should probably get started soon."

"I'll be ready in a minute," Meg replied.

At the table, Ben began to explain some of the key concepts of dogsledding. Well, one concept, really. The overarching one. Between mouthfuls of oatmeal, he said, "The most important thing to remember is to never let go of the sled. These dogs were bred to run, and they won't stop just because you're not on the sled anymore. Let go, and you may never find them again."

*And then frozen death awaits. Got that already, thanks,* Meg thought, but only said, "All right."

They finished breakfast quickly. Once the dishes were washed, Meg tried on Linda Quahon's thick, furry coat. It was large in the shoulders and a bit long, but it buttoned snugly, and would keep her well-insulated against the Arctic chill. That she happened to look rather like an elongated beaver, particularly once she got the hat on, was unfortunate, but couldn't be helped.

Fraser, also dressed in furs but somehow managing to look completely human in them, opened the back door, and motioned for her to precede him into the snow. Diefenbaker bounded out behind her.

* * *

He showed her how to put her loaner dogs in the traces, and they then spent most of the morning on the back of the same sled, him teaching her what to say and do to make the dogs go where she wanted.

Somewhere around the time she finally got the right tone of voice for "haw" to make the dogs pay attention and turn left, she realized that she was entirely in his world now. She was going to be dependent on Fraser's experiences in the wilderness, on his knowledge of this land, for her very survival.

It was terrifying.

It was no secret that Margaret Thatcher liked to be in control of everything that happened to her and around her. She'd made the grade one playground her kingdom, and had gotten into several memorable fights when other children tried to stage coups. Things had proceeded rather logically from there.

From the back of a dogsled, standing on one runner and hanging on not quite for dear life, Meg stared at the blank whiteness of the tundra, its very barrenness an open challenge. How did Fraser stand it, she wondered. She glanced at him, standing straight and tall beside her. A contented smile was settled on his face.

After two years of the shifting sands of the Middle East, she had been looking forward to being where she knew the terrain, metaphorically, or even literally. At least, she supposed, if she had to be thrust into this alien landscape on a harebrained adventure, Benton Fraser was probably the best man she could hope for as a guide.

Late in the afternoon, Ben climbed into her sled, and Meg was on her own with her dogs. Before getting started, she talked to them briefly while she put them in the traces, encouraging them not to, say, pull the sled out from under her and leave her face down in the snow.

Fraser's dogs, as was his custom, were named after prime ministers. Hers, on the other hand, had been named by Pete and Linda's kids, both girls.

"All right, Rainbow, you'll be a good girl, won't you? You, too, Fluffy? Sunshine?"

Hoping her little chat would work, Meg traipsed to the back of the sled. She took a deep breath. *Oh, god, oh god, oh god...*

"Hike!" she finally shouted, and the eager dogs were off. She ran behind for a few steps, then hopped nimbly on the runners.

She'd learned well. The dogs followed her directions almost before she gave them, and she balanced herself perfectly on the back of the sled as it went around corners and up and down hills. It was even, she thought, feeling the wind rush past her face and watching the landscape speed by, rather exhilarating to be the sole person directing the sled's motion. It was much better than sitting in the basket, hoping it would all be over soon.

When they returned from her practice run, Fraser congratulated her, sincere pride in his big grin. She grinned back.

After some time smiling at each other like two dolts, they each awkwardly looked away and began unhooking the dogs from the traces.

* * *

"Wow."

Meg had just taken a step back from the growing mountain of supplies in the middle of Fraser's kitchen. It was truly a magnificent pile. She had not imagined needing so much *stuff* for a two-week trip. There was a tent, of course, and food for both them and the dogs, and fluffy coats and blankets, and assorted other items, like a cooking pan, cups and plates, oh, and of course Frobisher's body, which was chilling outside and thus didn't yet add its bulk to the pile. That was okay. It was big enough on its own.

"It is rather impressive, isn't it?" Fraser said, also surveying the results of the evening's labor. They had whittled everything down to the barest of necessities, but having to bring one's own food and shelter, as well as clothing--thick, puffy clothing at that--on a trip did tend to make for a lot of luggage.

They began lugging said luggage out to the sleds in great armfuls, each having to make two tottering trips over the packed-down snow to the shed. They had secured Frobisher's coffin in Ben's sled earlier that evening, tying it down with rope. It all seemed rather undignified to Meg, but she thought that Frobisher probably would've gotten a kick out of it. He had asked for this, after all.

On the way back inside for the last time, Meg shivered and felt her teeth begin to chatter. "I'll be glad of that coat tomorrow, I'm su--oh." She stared at the sky, entranced. Above them, the heavens were colored in blue, pink and green as sheets of light danced across the dome of the sky. Waves of color skittered in all directions, doubling back on themselves, colliding with each other, hiding and revealing stars.

"They're beautiful," Meg breathed. She forgot about the cold, forgot about Frobisher's corpse waiting in the sled, forgot even about Fraser standing beside her, until he murmured, "It's almost the end of the season. I'd hoped you would be able to them at least once."

She shivered again, this time not from the cold at all. She kept her eyes on the flickering northern lights and tried not to think about what Fraser's voice, when he spoke in that low, rough register, did to her insides.

For a long time, they stood side-by-side, taking in the mutable sky.

* * *

Ben woke before the sun the next morning. The cabin was dark and quiet at five AM; Meg wasn't awake yet. He'd insisted that she take the bed again; not only would his grandmother spin in her grave if he didn't, but he knew she'd be sore from the unfamiliar exertions of yesterday, and he wanted her to be as comfortable as possible.

He flipped on a light and dressed quickly. Dief whined softly at the early wakeup. "You'll like it once you're out there," Ben whispered, patting Dief's head. "You love to run, remember?"

Dief made a noise which indicated he remembered no such thing.

After feeding the dogs, Ben worked quietly in the kitchen, preparing breakfast and mentally going over last-minute preparations that would need to be made for their journey. They had packed just about everything onto the sleds yesterday; all that remained were really just toothbrushes and that night's long underwear.

After he'd set two teabags to steeping, he walked down the hall and rapped gently on the bedroom door. "Meg?" he called. He still hesitated ever so slightly before using her given name. The formality of the RCMP and the Chicago Consulate seemed to linger even thousands of kilometers away.

She didn't respond, and he was about to knock again, but the door swung open as he was raising his hand. Inspector Thatcher was fully dressed, although she looked like she could use some caffeine. "Good morning," she said.

At the table, she gratefully opened the bottle of aspirin he had placed beside her cup and shook two into her palm. Breakfast was nearly silent, each of them consumed with thoughts and speculation about the days to come.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked, after the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away, and last-minute things had been stuffed into their packs.

Meg, covered head to foot in fur, hoisted her pack and nodded. Fraser swept the room with a last glance and doused the light. They were setting out.

Outside, the sun peeked over the tops of the mountains in the east, and the sky, still violet in the west, surrounded it in pale pink. The colors bounced off the snowcaps and made the world look like a Bierstadt painting, so huge and brawny and colorful as to be almost unreal. A small part of Meg wondered if it all might be just a dream.

The dogs had known since the previous night, when they'd packed their provisions and Frobisher's coffin in the sleds, that they were going to leave soon, and seeing the humans come out carrying yet more bundles only confirmed it. They bounced over and on top of each other in their excitement, whining and yipping.

Diefenbaker, as Ben had known he would, quickly remembered that yes, actually, he *did* love to run, and it definitely looked like he was going to get to run today, and that knowledge made him almost dance across the snow to the humans. Meg set her pack down when he approached her and reached out to pat his head.

Dief sped the last few feet toward her, and in the end, his excitement toppled her over into the snow. The wolf stood with his front paws on her chest, panting happily. Meg was completely silent.

*Ah, Dief, you're in for it now,* Ben thought, assuming that the utter lack of sound or motion from her supine body meant an explosion was imminent. But to his surprise, instead of yelling at the animal, she began to laugh. Her deep chuckle hadn't changed since Chicago; he had heard that laugh on two separate occasions while assigned to the consulate, and remembered each instance with perfect clarity.

He watched in a kind of wonder as Meg ruffled Dief's fur and submitted to a thorough face-licking. After several long moments, she finally lifted his paws off her chest and set them on the ground so that she could sit up.

Ben was there with an outstretched hand to help her up. "I really don't know what's come over him," he said, gently brushing the snow off her coat.

"He's excited," she said. "This is sort of thrilling, really. It's an adventure." She was also brushing the snow from her coat, and inevitably, their gloved hands touched. Ben immediately dropped his arms back down to his sides. Meg kept her eyes focused on her coat, and after a brief pause, she wiped the remaining ice crystals from the fur.

They checked over the contents of their sleds on last time, and put the dogs in the traces. As she harnessed them, Meg greeted each of hers by name and softly urged them to behave themselves out on the open tundra. The excitement of an adventure was all well and good, but at the same time, when one depended on rather mischievous animals for one's transportation and, thus, survival, there was also more than a little creeping terror to go along with it.

They lined up the teams and sleds parallel to each other, a little over a meter apart. Meg's sled held most of the provisions; Ben's carried Frobisher in his wooden box. He looked at her and met her eyes. She nodded.

With twin shouts of "Hike!" they shot off across the snow.

*** * * 4**** * * ***

They covered fifteen kilometers before stopping for lunch, and another six in the two hours after. They stayed close to each other, Ben always just ahead and frequently looking back to check that she was still behind him. The previous day, they had come up with hand signals to indicate when one wanted to stop for a break or had a problem, and these had worked well so far.

When the sun was neither directly overhead nor yet tilting at the horizon, Meg's lead dog, Lollipop, apparently spied something interesting in the distance. She sped the other dogs on with her barking, and soon all six were running flat out and taking Meg along for the ride.

She slammed down the sled brake. "Whoa! Easy!" she shouted, but the dogs were having none of that. If anything, they started going even faster. "Slow down, dammit!" Yep. Definitely having none of it.

Meg held on for dear life. She heard Fraser calling her name from far behind, and hoped he could reach her in time to do...something. Something that would stop these hounds from hell.

Just then, the sled went over a rock that had been hidden in the snow. Everything seemed to slow down as she felt one foot slip off the sled runner, dragging behind in the snow. The powdery snow seemed to want to take her whole body to its proverbial bosom; her other foot quickly slipped from its runner, and she was hanging on with only her mitted hands.

Quite soon thereafter, she wasn't hanging on at all.

Snow was rather a lot like sand, she decided. And she currently considered herself an expert on snow now that she was laying face down in the stuff. It got in places that it really ought not to be able to get into, such as under one's goggles, and into one's pants. Of course, instead of itching, it just melted. Coldly.

She heard Fraser's team kicking up the snow, and the hiss of his sled's runners cutting through it. Naturally, his dogs stopped on command, although not before they and the sled had half-covered her with sprayed-up snow.

She felt his hands on her back, clearing the snow off and subtly checking for injuries. She tilted her head so she could look at him.

He had a twinkle in his eyes and was having trouble suppressing a grin. "You let go of the sled," he said.

"I let go of the sled," she agreed. "Where are the dogs? Long gone?"

He extended an arm, and she gratefully took it and let him haul her out of the depression she'd created. "Look for yourself," he said when she was upright.

She looked. About sixty meters in front of them, her team was resting in the snow, tongues lolling. They looked insufferably smug. She saw that her sled had tipped over on its side, probably about the time she'd let go of it. Their supplies were scattered in a rough line for about twenty meters behind the overturned sled.

Meg groaned and rested her forehead on Ben's shoulder. "Tell me again why I'm doing this, Fraser," she said.

"Your respect for a fine officer who served more than thirty-five years on the force?" he replied.

"Ah. Yes. That." She lifted her head. "I'll get started repacking everything." *And then I'll throttle each and every one of those dogs.*

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed without further incident. They pulled up near a small stream when the sky began to turn the oranges and pinks of a northern sunset. They made camp quickly; their tent went up with a minimum of fuss, and the fire started quickly. The dogs were removed from their traces, fed, and tied to stakes. As the last remnant of the long day traded places with night, stew bubbled over the fire.

They ate mostly in silence, warming themselves and drying their clothes by the crackling fire, which cast flicking shadows on snowdrifts and trees, and made the ice crystals sparkle. Meg's vitriol over her runaway team had died by the time it came to unhitch them, but a twinge in the shoulder she had struck falling from the sled remained. As she leaned over to get more stew and felt it flare up again, she must have made some kind of noise or other indication that she was in pain, because wordlessly, Fraser reached over and began to massage her aching shoulder with deep, deft strokes.

Meg nearly dropped her bowl at her feet. She let out a half-gasp, half-hiss. Fraser's hand stopped moving. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No," Meg said, recovering quickly. "I was just surprised."

"Ah." He began to knead at her shoulder again. "I noticed you seemed to be favoring this shoulder. Ray took a fall very much like yours on his second try at mushing the sled. This seemed to help him."

Was that *jealousy* she felt? Jealousy that this closeness was not something she alone shared with Fraser?

*Grow up,* she told her inner teenager disgustedly. Her inner teenager stuck its tongue out at her.

Still, she relaxed into Ben's touch, and his fingers chased the twinge out of her muscles.

* * *

It was soon time to turn in for the night, for they planned to make a very early start in the morning. The dogs had dug themselves little hollows and burrows in the snow to keep warm, and were already asleep. Not having fur, Meg and Ben made do with long underwear, heavy-duty sleeping bags, and the tent.

The *one* tent. She'd known from the start that they only had the one, of course, because carrying two would have been ridiculous when they could both fit into one, albeit snugly. And yet, the reality of it only became totally clear when she watched Fraser duck through the flap, carrying their kerosene lamp, and knew that she would have to follow.

*I can do this,* she told herself, standing just outside the tent. *I am a grownup. I am a *Mountie*.* Thus momentarily courageous, she ducked inside.

She nearly tripped over Ben, who was difficult to see in the flickering lamplight. The tent was not just snug; it was damn near claustrophobic. Meg consoled herself with the thought that at least it might be a bit warmer than it could have been otherwise.

Fraser was already in his sleeping bag, on his side facing the tent wall. She could hear him breathing in a too-regular pattern that meant he wasn't asleep, but was pretending for her benefit, so that she could strip down to her thermals and get in her sleeping bag without having to worry about him seeing something he shouldn't. Not that he wouldn't be more embarrassed than her if he did, she thought, folding her clothes into a pile at the foot of her sleeping bag and squirming inside as quickly as she could. She still remembered the look in his face when, during the egg incident, she had ordered him to take off his tunic without explaining that she was after the bit of wire in his collar. Even now, it aroused a certain amused fondness in her. She wondered what he could have been thinking to make his face become so pale.

She turned over on her stomach and leaned into the tiny amount of space between the head of her sleeping bag and the tent wall. Cupping her hand behind the lamp that sat there, she blew out its cheerful flame, plunging the tent into sudden and utter darkness.

Meg held her breath, feeling almost as if with the extinguishing of the lamp, the world had also ceased to exist. There was no hall light coming under a door, no yellow sodium glow of a streetlamp through the window. There was only blackness and cold.

It was only when she heard Fraser stir that she let her breath out. Other sounds began to filter into her ears: the wind soughing through branches of spruce and fir, one of the dogs yipping at something in a dream.

"Goodnight," she said, needing to pit something human against the alien darkness.

"Goodnight," Fraser returned softly, his mouth barely six inches from her face. She could have reached out and touched his cheek or his lips. Instead, she rolled over and tried to will herself to sleep.

* * *

Ben woke to the sound of nylon sliding against nylon, the metallic chirping of zippers, and cotton skimming over skin. For a moment unsure of where he was, he opened his eyes.

Upon spying quite a bit more of Margaret Thatcher than he had ever expected to see, he slammed them shut again and twisted to face away from her. The rustling of fabric stopped abruptly.

Ben cursed himself for his reaction. Now she knew exactly what he'd seen, and he knew what he'd seen and...the whole thing was entirely too awkward. Sharing a tent with Meg--with *Inspector Thatcher*, he reminded himself, because despite her insistence on first names, it wouldn't do to get too comfortable--was an altogether different experience than sharing one with Ray had been. The air seemed constantly charged, just on the verge of giving him a good shock if he moved the wrong way. The scent that was uniquely hers filled the air and permeated the fabric, or maybe just his distracted mind. The way his tongue twisted up on itself when all he wanted to do was...

"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you," Meg suddenly said. She sounded amused. "I can see from over here that you're as red as a fire engine."

He wondered if, perhaps, he could melt into the frozen ground below. His face (and ears, and neck, and scalp) certainly felt hot enough. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling as if the image of her slipping the thermal undershirt on over bare skin, lit from behind by lamplight and dawn, would be forever printed on the backs of his eyelids.

"Don't be," she answered. His eyes shot open again, and he wondered if he'd heard her correctly. "I'll go feed the dogs and start breakfast while you get dressed."

She slipped out of the tent, leaving him wondering how on earth he was going to look her in the eye for the rest of the trip.

When he finally did emerge, they ate their simple breakfast and harnessed the dogs. Meg was as quick and efficient at it as he now, and they were soon on their way.

*** * * 5 * * ***

After several days spent almost entirely in each others' presence, the easing of their relationship that Meg had hoped for came naturally. Over meals or in the tent after dark, Ben told her anecdotes from his past year up north, or from his expedition with Ray. Apparently it had ended after eleven months, Hand of Franklin-less (although really, they had been chasing an idea more than a hand) when they had run into Ben's sister, Maggie, while she was on patrol. Ray had decided that while quests were all well and good, it was high time he got to know her a lot better. Ben was alternately dismayed and delighted by their burgeoning relationship.

Meg responded with childhood tales, or sometimes with a scrap of reminiscence about someone she'd met or a place she'd gone in the Middle East, although so much of her past two years was in folders marked "Top Secret" back in Ottawa that she could hardly rely on it as a consistent topic of conversation. Besides, there was little about that time she wanted to relive.

Sometimes their conversations extended even past the point where they'd blown out the lamp and were ostensibly trying to fall asleep. One night, Ben started talking about his mother, of whom Meg had previously heard almost nothing. He was describing the small garden they had planted and tended the summer before she died. She heard the slight hitch in his voice as he spoke about harvesting the tiny vegetables that had managed to spring forth in the short northern summer, and without thinking, she reached out and curled her fingers around his. He squeezed it gratefully. They fell asleep soon after, still holding on to each other, one human connection in a vast and empty darkness.

And so for five days, they traced their really rather quite chilly line through a land that was not so much wild and savage as endless and supremely uncaring. On the fifth day, around lunch time, Meg could stand it no longer.

"How do you do it?" she asked.

Fraser furrowed his brow. "Do what?"

"Live here." He still looked confused. She tried to explain. "It just seems so barren."

Fraser cocked his head. He looked out at the blank whiteness surrounding them, broken only by the occasional evergreen and, in the distance, low mountains. He pointed suddenly at some indentations in the snow about three feet away.

"Do you see that? A fox passed by here a few hours ago." He turned slightly and took a few steps away from her. "And over here--a moose came though within the past day."

Meg followed him and stared dubiously at the ground. At first she saw nothing but snow, but sure enough, so faint that she would certainly have missed them without someone there to point them out, there were the twin teardrop impressions of moose hooves, heading south.

As if on cue, with a great flapping of wings, a white-feathered ptarmigan passed over their heads, soaring high into the pale sky. She frowned.

Within just a few feet of their stopping place, Ben pointed out other signs of habitation: spoor from the moose, twigs broken by the passing of a fox or hare, a feather dropped by a gyrfalcon.

Meg held the feather between her thumb and mitted fingers, studying it closely. "Hmm," she said.

Before they started back on their journey, Ben mentioned that if they kept up the pace, they would be able to make Nameless Point by the next evening.

* * *

When they stopped for the night, they each took up the usual roles they had fallen into, which had made the last several days run like clockwork; Fraser built the fire, and Thatcher put up the tent. Usually she finished before he did, but on this night, he found that she lagged behind him. Worried, he crossed the few steps to help her with the tent construction, and took a good look at her while doing so. She looked exhausted: dark half-moons lingered under her eyes, and she seemed to be moving as if through water. He took the tent pole from her hand.

"I'll finish this," he said.

"I can do it," she protested, but it was half-hearted at best.

"Are you ill?" he asked, dropping the pole and removing his glove to press a bare hand against her forehead. It was cool to the touch.

"No." She waved him off. "Just tired, I suppose."

He felt a tightening in his chest. Of course she was tired. They'd traversed some of the most difficult terrain yet on their trip today--many steep upward slopes where they'd had to run beside the sleds for the dogs to even make it up the incline, and also gauntlets of trees and boulders, requiring a steady hand and precision handling of the sleds. Not to mention that he'd all but guilt-tripped her into coming on this trip in the first place, just days after she'd returned from two years spying in the Middle East. He should have insisted that her needs came first, despite this being Frobisher's last wish. Of *course* she was tired.

He led her to a seat in front of the fire and told her to rest. She nodded, holding her hands out to be warmed by the flames.

He wondered also if today's sudden acknowledgement of exhaustion had anything to do with the previous night. He had been woken--his internal clock told him around three AM--by Meg thrashing around in the tight confines of her sleeping bag, presumably in the throes of some nightmare. When he had reached out a questing hand to wake her, finally bumping his fingers against her shoulder, she had stilled immediately, and he had decided to leave her sleeping. She hadn't mentioned anything about a nightmare in the morning, and he had let it go, assuming she didn't remember.

She might not remember it, but it gnawed at him. The idea of strong, capable Margaret Thatcher being frightened by anything, even in a dream, was completely outside of his worldview. She had spoken so little about her time in the Middle East; could it be something from the past two years which haunted her? As he finished setting up the tent and set a thick stew to bubbling over the fire, he resolved to ask her.

It took him until they were almost through with dinner to decide that the best way was also the most direct one. They had spoken little throughout the meal, and his question came after long minutes of silence.

"Meg," he said. He'd grown more comfortable using her name over the past several days, to the point where it came quite naturally. She looked up from her bowl. "You've never--that is, you haven't said much about your time away. I thought--perhaps--if you wanted, or, or needed to talk..."

*That went well,* a sarcastic voice in his mind commented. The voice bore more than a passing resemblance to that of his father, which, frankly, was a little disturbing, but he let the thought pass.

Meg's face had twisted up in a grimace. She set her bowl on the ground. "I suppose I haven't," she finally said. "There isn't much to say. I was mostly useful because men would say more around me, thinking that because I was a woman, I wouldn't understand or couldn't be working against their government. There was a lot of pretending to be servile and stupid when all I really wanted to do was punch someone in the mouth." Fraser stifled a laugh at this image. He could well imagine her blood steaming underneath an icy exterior.

"It was probably a good thing that the nephew of one of the directors of the CSIS"--she rolled her eyes here--"broke my cover less than a month after he got there. I was getting...lost."

Fraser quirked an eyebrow. "Lost?"

She shrugged. "It wasn't like I thought it would be when Superintendent Franks suggested I take the position. There was too much..." she trailed off, moving her hands in the air, futilely trying to find a word to encompass the subterfuge, the fear, and the need to stay quiet about so many small injustices so that the big ones could, eventually, be brought to rights.

"I didn't like the person I had to be." She sighed. "To be entirely honest, I haven't really liked the person I've been for quite a while now." She rolled her eyes at his quizzical look. "Come on, Fraser, don't tell me you didn't notice."

"Notice what?"

"The way I treated you. And Turnbull and Ovitz," she added, almost as an afterthought.

No, being relegated picking up her dry cleaning had certainly not gone unnoticed, although many of the regular consulate duties were hardly a better use of his skills.

Meg seemed to be interested in baring her soul, or at least some part of it. "You know what happened before, with Henri"--she nearly spat the name--"and others like him. When I came to Chicago, I wanted to make sure everyone knew I was in charge. Unfortunately, that desire came out in a...rather ugly way."

"I never resented it." he said. She just looked at him, and he knew she saw right through him. Just like his mother had. "Well, I may have once or twice--but never deeply." That was true. He had at first been confused by her cold and authoritarian--and sometimes capricious and petty--manner, but as long as he completed whatever tasks she required of him, she didn't make an issue of his extracurricular policing, and that was all that really mattered to him.

"But I understand why you felt the need to act as you did."

"How can you?" she whispered. He was a man, following his father's career path into the old boys' club of the RCMP. He couldn't have faced the patronizing superiors, the battles to get put on more dangerous details against those who thought women shouldn't be in the field, the constant need to be twice as good as everyone else to even get noticed.

"It's rather difficult to get others to take you seriously, even in small settlements, when every personal anecdote begins with 'Among the Inuit.'"

She seemed surprised, even shocked. Perhaps she hadn't thought he knew what the effect of his naive, backwoods persona was on others. Then she smiled, nodding a couple times.

"You know, it's funny," she said. "I think right now, on this trip, dragging a dead man around the Arctic, is the first time I've felt like myself in...I can't remember how long."

Ben was silent for a moment. Meg stared into the fire. Then Fraser stood and walked over to Meg's sled, the one which carried their supplies. The bags were significantly lighter now after five days on the trail; he didn't have to rummage far to find what he was looking for. When he came back, he deposited one of two small, foil-wrapped slabs in her hand.

"Chocolate?" she asked, reading the label in the dim light.

"You may want to warm it over the fire for a bit," he said.

Her brow furrowed, she unwrapped the small chocolate bar. "What's this for?"

He shrugged, smiling a little. "We're almost there. I thought we should celebrate."

"I see." She attempted to break off a corner of the bar, realizing when it didn't budge that Fraser's advice about defrosting it was sound. "Well, then. Cheers." She looked over at Fraser's sled, still heavy with Frobisher's coffin. "To you too, Sergeant," she said, a hint of amusement in her tone. Fraser kept smiling.

* * *

The next morning was bright and cold. It was the day they would reach Nameless Point, and finally unload the macabre cargo they'd carried for a hundred and fifty kilometers. The dogs ran surely and swiftly, and they made good time.

Fraser sighted the point just as the sun was beginning to hide behind the western mountains. The point was actually a cliff that looked over a river valley, one made by a tributary of the mighty Mackenzie several hundred feet wide. Its vastness would have engendered settlements and bridges in other places; here, it didn't even merit a name.

Ben and Meg braked the sleds about thirty meters from the cliff edge, and made camp on the lee side of a large rock formation. Both were filled with the renewed energy of reaching a destination, and they walked lightfooted through the deep snow to see over the edge.

Sergeant Frobisher's resting place had a fine view in all seasons--the iced-over water and miles of pure white snow in winter, and the full, colorful glory of brief northern summers and autumns. In May, someone standing at the point could hear the ice on the river thundering as it broke up, and watch the slow greening of the land.

At the moment, everything was still under white snow, which shone in the setting sun. Three caribou walked along the bank of the river, foraging in the snow for food. Meg wondered if everything in this place looked like a painting come to life.

"I can see why he wanted to spend eternity here," she said.

"Sergeant Frobisher and my father came here on one of their first hunting trips together. It became something of a special place for them; they kept returning when they got a chance, every few years or so. My father took me along sometimes, when he had enough time to come by wherever my grandparents and I were living first." Meg got the impression that that hadn't been very often. "Wanting to be laid to rest here was unexpected, though. Although Julie, his daughter, did say she'd thought we might find something unusual in his will." Meg wasn't surprised at that.

With little to say, they stood there, two small figures against a vast wilderness, a thousand miles from anywhere, watching the sun set over the valley.

*** * * 6 * * ***

Frobisher's interment the following day was a slow process. Winter being what it was that far north, actual burial was out of the question. Only a backhoe could penetrate the frozen ground. Instead, they modified Inuit tradition. Working together, they managed to wrestle Frobisher's coffin into a perfectly-sized hollow in the rocks near which they had camped. As the shadows grew longer, they piled smaller stones, some of them rather far-flung from the site, into the narrow crevice's opening. With rocks masking the hole entirely, no opportunistic scavenger could come across the body and interrupt its slow decomposition. Dief tried to help, rolling stones over to them with his nose, but more often than not this created a snowball with a rock in the middle of it, and he soon gave it up in favor of following Meg around, staring intently at her. "What are you doing?" she finally asked him, feeling silly for expecting an answer. Then again, Fraser did seem to have conversations with him all the time....

Of course, Diefenbaker remained completely silent, and continued to stare at her.

Fraser laid the last stone in place and took several steps back. Meg joined him, standing near but not too near, and they surveyed their work. Frobisher's grave would certainly be well-marked, she thought, taking in the massive rock formation under which he laid.

Apparently satisfied, Fraser removed his ever-present Stetson. Meg removed her hat as well, determined to pay Frobisher the respect he deserved as a fine and decorated officer no matter how strange the situation was.

"Goodbye, sir," Fraser said, and saluted smartly. Meg followed his lead, and while raising her hand to her brow, wished Frobisher well, wherever he might be.

* * *

There were still a few hours of daylight left, what with the sun setting after nine o'clock. They spent some time redistributing weight between the sleds, and had an early supper. Afterwards, Ben suggested a short walk, far enough to see a bit more of the amazing scenery, but still close enough to the dogs and sleds should trouble arise.

Meg chose not to ask what "trouble" might mean in the context of an Artic wilderness which contained some not-particularly-friendly predators.

Dief, of course, came along with them, as did Lollipop, Meg's lead dog. Over the intervening six days, Meg had not only gotten over any latent animosity from Lolly's antics of the first afternoon, but had grown quite fond of the blue-eyed female. Ben privately thought that it might have something to do with the way Lolly kept the other members of the team in line with an iron paw--sudden desperate desires to chase something notwithstanding. He thought, perhaps, that Thatcher felt a certain kinship with this dog.

They walked slowly, watching as the declining angle of light transfigured elements of the landscape. As they strolled--well, strolled as best one could do while trudging through deep snow--Fraser attempted to determine the source of the nervous energy that seemed to be flooding every vein.

It had gone quite well, all things considered. They had brought Frobisher all the way out to this remote spot, had covered his body with stones, had provided what ceremony they could. They had discharged their duty. So why did it feel like he had left something unfinished?

His father had told him once, when he wasn't sure what to do about Ray during the trouble with Damon Cahill, "Your heart is where your duty lies." Sometimes he still felt like his father was just behind him, invisible, calling unbidden to his mind things he had once said. Ben wondered what that could mean in this situation, and why, of all possible responses to his feeling of incompleteness, those words had been the ones to run through his mind.

* * *

Dusk crept in with all the slow silence of wolf paws in the snow. They found their way back to the point to watch the last of it.

At the moment, Meg reflected, it was almost ridiculously easy to see the beauty of the vast, wild land. She had been wrong; it was far from barren and empty. Northern sunlight penetrated every crack and crevice. Evidence of life was everywhere, obvious once she knew what to look for.

And of course, the most tangible life was standing beside her, opening his mouth to ask what was on her mind.

She didn't give him the chance.

She kissed him, and after a shocked second, he kissed her back. It wasn't the desperate, adrenaline-fueled rush of their impulsive encounter on the train. Nor was it the soft brush of lips of their last trip up this way, full of regret for what might have been. Instead, in this kiss was all the welcome, joy, and relief Meg had wanted to feel upon finally coming home.

However, the practicality she prided herself on soon intruded. Awareness of her surroundings came slowly back to her, and with it the eminently reasonable assumption that her impulsive action had been inspired solely by the overly romantic scenery that surrounded them and the circumstances they found themselves in. It had to be due to the enforced togetherness of the past several days, the bracing northern air, the heavy emotion of the funereal day. Heat spread across her cheeks, and she tore her mouth from Ben's.

He was, of course, wearing that perfect little-boy-betrayed expression, and if possible, she felt her cheeks flush even redder.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, stricken, and ran back to their camp.

It was a long time before Fraser followed her into the tent. She wasn't asleep, of course, but she feigned it to avoid awkward conversation. She hoped that in the morning, he would remain true to form and keep his own counsel on the subject of what had happened that evening.

*** * * 7 * * ***

The morning was cold in more ways than one. But both of them were adept at avoidance, and they packed up and started out with a minimum of conversation. With the load on their sleds lightened so considerably, they stood to make excellent time on the journey back.

After a day off, Meg's dogs were ready to run, and she was ready to let them go as fast as they wanted. They fairly flew over the snow. The wind sang past the little exposed skin on her face, leaving it raw, but she welcomed the pain as a distraction from unpleasanter thoughts. Well, not that the memory of her latest incident with Benton Fraser was entirely unpleasant, of course, it was just that left to come to their natural conclusion, the consequences of her actions--of their actions; after all, he had been rather willing about the whole thing--would, probably sooner rather than later, become troublesome. Wouldn't they?

If she'd had a free hand, she would have pinched the bridge of her nose in hopes of making the impending headache go away. But all her efforts had to go into handling the sled as it skimmed over the snow, and soon she lost herself in the sensation of near-flight.

They covered twenty-two kilometers before stopping for the evening. Meg noticed while they made camp that Fraser appeared to have regained his equanimity. He whistled cheerfully as he started the fire. He gave her a quick smile when he caught her staring at him, puzzled. He seemed, in fact, to have forgotten all about their kiss.

*This is a good thing,* Meg told herself, noting with displeasure that even her own inner voice sounded doubtful. *We can put any awkwardness behind us and part as friends.*

Her inner teenager appeared then, and implied quite forcefully that the last thing she wanted to be to Fraser was just "friends."

Meg decided that if it were only possible, she would cheerfully strangle her inner teenager.

But as she found during supper, Fraser had not forgotten their most recent "contact." Halfway through the meal, he asked, out of the blue, "Yesterday, why did you apologize?"

As she dropped her metal camp plate face down on the ground, Meg silently cursed his propensity for asking startling questions during meals. In the ensuing production--both of them nearly knocking heads while trying to pick up the plate, Ben offering her the rest of his meal, her declining out of professed lack of hunger--she hoped he might forget his original question. But of course, this was Fraser, who was as tenacious as the average terrier.

"Forgive me, but you did say that you weren't, as of this moment, a member of the RCMP. I don't believe that we were engaging in any activity that might be frowned upon."

She stared at him. Did he really not understand? Well, she could hardly blame him, she supposed, since she herself couldn't make heads or tails of half the emotions that were flitting around her brain, getting tangled in carefully constructed nets of logic and reason. She hadn't been this confused since that day on the train, when the sudden punch of grief she felt over Fraser's apparent death had completely blindsided her.

As so often happened when Fraser disoriented her, she responded with anger. "It shouldn't have happened," she snapped. The sharpness of command had come back into her voice, and she could see where Fraser practically had to restrain himself from standing at attention. *Damn,* she thought. He didn't deserve her anger, but further apologies stuck in her throat, only irritating her more. She said a curt "Good night," and stalked into the tent.

What she needed right now, she thought as she viciously unzipped, unfastened, and untied her various outer layers, was a pity party, complete with ice cream and a black and white movie on TV. But the nearest supermarket was probably a thousand miles away, and cable seemed an unlikely amenity in her current abode.

You would think, she told herself, that after two earlier mistakes, she would be better able to control her actions around Ben Fraser. Their last kiss, when they were saying goodbye, was excusable; when she thought she'd never have the chance to do it again, why not? And the train, well, she could hardly have been expected not to have shown *some* kind of emotion after seeing him return from the dead--at least before she knew it was a semi-regular occurrence where Fraser was concerned--and anyway, as she recalled, *he* had been the first one to step forward and lean in, a fact which had caused her considerable delight for quite some time.

But as nice as "contact" with her former subordinate was, to allow it to continue would only lead to a bad ending, she thought as she settled into her sleeping bag. She still had at least one more promotion in her, she hoped, and being posted to the northernmost point of the back of beyond would do her career no favors. Fraser, she knew, would never be truly happy in Toronto or Montreal or any other big eastern city.

Something rustled the tent flaps, and she jumped. But it was only Dief, who had come in apparently with the express purpose of sitting and staring at her.

"What?" she asked. The wolf's weird attitude had begun to irritate her after more than a week.

Dief gave her a look she could only interpret as reproachful.

"You think I should apologize to him."

Dief whined.

Meg grimaced. "Well, you're probably right there. I shouldn't have snapped at him. I shouldn't have *kissed* him, either."

The wolf's whine took on an inquisitive air.

"Oh, come on. Even you should know why."

His answer was not--quite--a growl.

"I have to go back. He has to stay here. Surely you've seen *Casablanca*."

She thought she saw Dief roll his eyes.

"All right, I suppose I'm not exactly Ingrid Bergman." She looked around the tent. It was hardly the Cafe Americain. "After all, I am sitting here talking to a dog." Dief objected to this characterization. "All right, *wolf*." He subsided.

Meg was silent for a while. Dief continued to stare at her, his dark eyes glistening in the light from the kerosene lamp.

She cracked first. The humans always did. "What *now*?"

He looked at her like she ought to know. To be fair, she did.

"All right. All right! I'll talk to him. Happy?" *You realize you just let a *dog* talk you into something,* she told herself. *And the dog doesn't even talk.*

Dief actually seemed to nod. He stood up and left the tent.

Meg wondered what she would say, how she could lead Fraser through the dense thicket of impulsive emotion and cold reason she didn't quite know how to navigate herself. But she fell asleep before he came into the tent, and in the morning the moment was lost.

* * *

The next two days flew by as they sped across the snow. Meg was determined to enjoy every remaining moment before she went back to Ottawa for reassignment, and from there to a probably very nice position behind a large executive desk, where her professional life would in all likelihood consist of paperwork, strategic attendance at diplomatic events, paperwork, the occasional dressing down of a subordinate or three, and oh, yes, paperwork. It made her tired just thinking about it.

Out here, the feeling of being part of the powerful dog team seemed to give her energy reserves she'd never known she had. With each breath, she filled her lungs with clean northern air. Even though she did long for certain urban conveniences, she would miss it all back in the city, when she was trudging down sidewalks clogged with people, hemmed in by tall buildings and dull gray skies.

On their last night out, they kept running well into dusk so that they could cover the remaining kilometers to Fraser's cabin the following day before evening fell. Because of the irregular schedule the bush plane to Hay River kept, she would stay with him another two days. Meg's muscles sang with the exertion of the day, and she gratefully took a seat for dinner.

Some of the former distance between them had returned, but not all of it, and the conversation was easy. During the meal, Ben teased her about her ravenous appetite, and she punched him lightly in the arm before stealing the last of his pemmican.

But when they were finished, he turned quiet and pensive. She offered a penny for his thoughts.

He was silent for a long moment. "Where do you think you'll go when we get back?" he finally asked, his tone light as anything. He was carefully not looking at her, focusing all his attention on the fire.

She felt a twist in her guts. They had so little time left together on this trip; she'd hoped they could put off talking about its end for at least another day.

"I'm not sure," she answered, attempting to keep her tone as light as his. "Wherever I'm sent, I suppose. Toronto or Ottawa, most likely."

He looked up, catching her gaze in the firelight. He didn't let go, and for a second she contemplated how very blue his eyes were. "You could stay here," he almost whispered.

She knew her mouth had dropped open because of the cold air on her tongue. To say the suggestion--and the implied desire--had broadsided her was an understatement of gigantic enough proportions that it fit right into this outsized country. *How am I supposed to answer this?* she wondered. "I..." she stuttered.

She could tell the instant he began to regret his words and start putting up the impenetrable mask he had worn so often with her before this trip. She knew only one thing, and it was that she couldn't let that happen.

Before he could speak, she blurted, "Only if I can get to a real grocery store at least once a month." She could've kicked herself for saying something so inane.

Time hung suspended in the clear Arctic night, and she felt her heart pause. Ben was so completely expressionless for so long that she thought, she thought...but then a smile slowly broke over his face, like dawn over the tundra. "There are lots of places like that up here," he said.

Her heart began to beat again.

* * *

After their conversation, it seemed only natural that he should kiss her. She saw no reason not to respond. Unwilling to waste any more time after more than four years, they all but ran into the tent, and began tugging at clothing in between kisses. Ben paused when he got down to her underwear.

"Red suits you," he said, taking in her wooly thermals with an amused smile.

She rolled her eyes. "They're hardly attractive," she said.

"They look fantastic on you," he insisted. "Of course, they'd look even better *off* you," he continued. Meg grinned, and when he grasped the hem of her shirt, she eagerly lifted her arms so he could pull it off.

They were interrupted by Diefenbaker, who had slipped inside the tent without a sound and who now pressed his cold, wet nose against the bare skin of back. Meg shrieked. Briefly.

"What *is* it with you?" she asked the animal. Dief only wagged his tail happily.

Ben cocked his head. "Wolves are quite demonstrative among those with whom they feel comfortable." Dief nuzzled him, as if to prove a point. "I think he considers you part of his pack. He's trying to let you know that you're...well, family, basically."

Meg turned that thought over for a moment. She'd never expected a wolf to care one way or another about her, but she knew from experience to expect the unexpected around Benton Fraser. She'd best get used to it.

"Thank you for the welcome, Dief," she said, ruffling the fur behind his ears. She glanced at Ben. "But I think it's time you learned there are some things even family member wolves don't need to share." She and Ben gently shooed Dief out of the tent, making sure the flaps were secure this time before returning their attentions to each other.

* * *

Far away, nearly invisible in the twilight, an old man in a red uniform smiled. A promise extracted long ago by a dear friend fulfilled, he looked fondly at the couple in the distance for a moment before turning and walking away, becoming increasingly transparent with each step.


End file.
